Forgive me. I'm reacting mostly to what I'm seeing on the mainstream cable news channels. NBC Nightly News has been campaigning for increased gun control almost nonstop since the incident. On CSPAN last night, I saw some Democrat Senator pontificating about increased gun control.

Forgive me. I'm reacting mostly to what I'm seeing on the mainstream cable news channels. NBC Nightly News has been campaigning for increased gun control almost nonstop since the incident. On CSPAN last night, I saw some Democrat Senator pontificating about increased gun control.

The same media conglomerate that touts Jersey Shore as entertainment, nothing more needs to be said._________________"It's ok, they might have guns but we have flowers." - Perpetual Victim

Kind of pointless seven pages in, but here's another attempt to make a distinction between "crazy" people and people who go on killing rampages...

How on earth is a person who is mentally ill (ie. not able to function in society because of delusions and recurring hallucinations) going to pull it together long enough to stockpile weapons without blowing their own head off or drawing the attention of their social workers and roommates (government housing is not exactly luxurious), go out in public, upset, without flipping out at the various voices in their heads and shouting or shooting at things that don't exist and finally manage to have enough ammo left over for doing whatever it was they were doing in the first place.

They don't. They sit at home and hurt themselves because their minds are broken. With the right meds, some of them manage to do simple things like go grocery shopping without having religious experiences with cans of chicken soup in aisle 11.

There was a case up here in Canada of a schizophrenic who thought a person beside him on the bus was a demon, so he attacked and killed him. He only attacked a single person and then stopped and was remorseful. I don't think he had prepared in any way for the event or had any kind of plan, he just had a psychotic break and felt tormented and tortured by someone. This I think is more typical of the kind of violence that might be carried out by somebody with mental illness without their meds.

The attacks that started this thread sound very premeditated to me. The shooter knew what he was doing and knew how to do it while inflicting maximum damage. He was a sadistic coward.

The real problem here is that the media are begging the question. The logic goes like this: somebody would have to be mentally ill in order to do something like this (or, more accurately, someone who would actually do this is, by definition, mentally ill). Therefore we can prevent it by keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. The problem is that this is circular reasoning. I'd say that several of these people who have gone on these shooting sprees (including this guy in Connecticut) are no more "mentally ill" than anybody else, except in one way: they killed a bunch of people (and are therefore, by society's definition, are mentally ill).

Now, obviously, reasonable measures should be taken to prevent people who are known to be a danger to society from hurting people. But an automobile or a can of gasoline (etc., etc.) can do just as much harm as an assault rifle (and it happens all the time). So banning guns is not going to prevent such tragedies. Nut cases burn down buildings every day. People go nuts and plow into crowds with cars, or cause horrific accidents on high-speed chases, all the time. There are serial killers presently at large, with dozens of victims in the ground.

While reasonable measures should be taken to protect the public from all dangers, we do not live in some kind of a fantasy land where bad things never happen to good people. There are some things that simply cannot be controlled, and when a human being who wants to die, or who has no fear of death, wants to kill a bunch of other people, there is nothing that's going to stop them, except maybe love.

This masturbation about gun control is just another TSA-body-groping-like authoritarian intrusion on the rights of innocent people. It's not going to do a damned bit of good, and it's just more erosion of individual freedom. The people who have a hard-on for gun control are either proponents of authoritarian government who want a disarmed, easier to oppress population and are morbidly using this situation to their advantage, or they are the moronic, naive lemming sock puppets of these people.

Isn't that some kind of logical fallacy (or similar)? I can never keep them straight._________________Here's another unfortunate pack of mutants who ought to be penciled in for a sudden visit from the angel of death.
-- Carlin

She did, but what I'm saying is that if "You might let a nut get your gun and kill you with it" is a reason for denying someone the right to buy a gun, then that's effectively banning guns for everyone. Unless we have biometric guns or something.

We are on the same page now.

dmitchell wrote:

OK, let's just stick to the numbers: 100,000 instances of firearms being used in self defense each year. That's not an anecdotal story. I'm not saying it's grandmother and monstrous black men, but it's a lot of people using guns (mostly just showing them) to protect themselves.

Again, my point is that one is still safer. You have 100,000 instances of people protecting themselves. In my fictitious society you would have 1/10 the deaths from firearms, and 0 instances of people protecting themselves.

Here is something for a libertarian to consider. While you are collecting guns to defend against an oppressive state, I am policed by people who don't carry guns. The police here have enormous power which should be curbed, but they aren't going to chase me down and shoot me. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. While you are having an arms race with your neighbour and police force, we are not. very few people have guns here, criminal and non criminal alike. A few years ago there was a spate of stabbings and knife fights in london. That would have been Ak-47 in New York. We have a murder rate to match.

dmitchell wrote:

I'll tell you what could have stopped this massacre: another person with a gun. Like a police officer, for instance. Or even a teacher. How many teachers ran away and left their kids behind? They would die for those kids, and maybe a teacher could have saved them if he had the tools. It doesn't make sense to me to be anti-gun. Guns can be protect the innocent and save lives. We should be anti-murder.

No it wouldn't. The guy would have killed a number of kids before anyone knew what was going on. Even if some ex-navy seal was teaching there with a gun in his holster, kids would have died before anyone knew what was up. Perhaps fewer kids, but many would have died.

I'll tell you what would have helped. If this nut had easier access to mental healthcare than guns, and lived in a society that wasn't so prone to gun violence (latter thing is hard to change), this wouldn't have happened. The strange thing is that we (you and I) seem to be proving my point. Both of us seem to be anti violence from previous posts, but your reaction to this is MORE guns. This guy lives in a society where the answer is more guns, regardless of the question. Is it a mystery that he resorted to this?

dmitchell wrote:

The thing about statistics is that they gloss over details. The population as a whole might be safer, but any particular individual could be much less safe. You really need local, on-the-ground knowledge to decide if owning a gun makes you safer or not, so I think we need to leave that decision to individuals. National legislation is too blunt an instrument.

Sorry for splitting up your paragraph.

Righto. But you'll end up with a tragedy of the commons scenario. The other thing about statistics is that they aggregate all these stories and give a heartless accounting of whats going on. You can look at number with a clear head.

The strange thing is that we (you and I) seem to be proving my point. Both of us seem to be anti violence from previous posts, but your reaction to this is MORE guns. This guy lives in a society where the answer is more guns, regardless of the question. Is it a mystery that he resorted to this?

How is this processing?

Guns != violence

Guns == hunk of metal

Every experience I've seen with weapons (of any form) in the right hands usually winds up restoring order._________________"It's ok, they might have guns but we have flowers." - Perpetual Victim

Here is something for a libertarian to consider. While you are collecting guns to defend against an oppressive state, I am policed by people who don't carry guns. The police here have enormous power which should be curbed, but they aren't going to chase me down and shoot me. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. While you are having an arms race with your neighbour and police force, we are not. very few people have guns here, criminal and non criminal alike. A few years ago there was a spate of stabbings and knife fights in london. That would have been Ak-47 in New York. We have a murder rate to match.

Here is something for a libertarian to consider. While you are collecting guns to defend against an oppressive state, I am policed by people who don't carry guns. The police here have enormous power which should be curbed, but they aren't going to chase me down and shoot me. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. While you are having an arms race with your neighbour and police force, we are not. very few people have guns here, criminal and non criminal alike. A few years ago there was a spate of stabbings and knife fights in london. That would have been Ak-47 in New York. We have a murder rate to match.

It is that simple, really. There is no argument to defend USA's current gun culture. It does not prevent crime, it creates crime. It does not prevent violence, it fuels violence._________________Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

It is that simple, really. There is no argument to defend USA's current gun culture. It does not prevent crime, it creates crime. It does not prevent violence, it fuels violence.

you don't have a bunch of latin american drug cartels and depressed fucking people who are depressed because they see all this success and glory on TV and can't figure out why other people have and they do not. and crazy people.

wrong, wherever 'defenders' - in that case police, targets, armed up, the criminals did even more so. May I give as examples england or Berlin. In Berlin criminals did not use guns until police started to use guns.

In the USA - of course offenders are armed. It is so easy to get some over the top weapon - and with all those crazies running around, it is the only 'save' way for offenders.

On the other hand a defender does not gain much from a weapon. The chance to deter an offender is pretty slim - or the USA would have one of the lowest crime rates in the Western World - while the chance to get killed because the offender goes down the no-risk route is very high.

And for every gun-idiot-saved-someone story are at least one hundred of some gun-nut killing someone either by pure accident or in anger, drug rampage etc pp.

yes guys, it helped so much. But gun-fuckers will of course find some apologistic crap to support their untenable position.

And please show me where in your pretty 'constitution' it says that people should be allowed to run around with (semi)automatic weapons. Please cite the passage to me._________________Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males

In the USA - of course offenders are armed. It is so easy to get some over the top weapon

too many people believe such nonsense. I've given up thinking they are anything other than willfully uninformed._________________Here's another unfortunate pack of mutants who ought to be penciled in for a sudden visit from the angel of death.
-- Carlin

Again, my point is that one is still safer. You have 100,000 instances of people protecting themselves. In my fictitious society you would have 1/10 the deaths from firearms, and 0 instances of people protecting themselves.

Here is something for a libertarian to consider. While you are collecting guns to defend against an oppressive state, I am policed by people who don't carry guns. The police here have enormous power which should be curbed, but they aren't going to chase me down and shoot me. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. While you are having an arms race with your neighbour and police force, we are not. very few people have guns here, criminal and non criminal alike. A few years ago there was a spate of stabbings and knife fights in london. That would have been Ak-47 in New York. We have a murder rate to match.

Even if your plan was feasible and worked as intended (wait, what's your plan? confiscate all privately owned guns?), your point is that on average people are safer. That doesn't mean any particular individual is safer. So essentially the bargain you are offering is this: give up your ability to defend yourself and your ability to decide for yourself how much safety you need, and we can make a fictitious "average citizen" safer.

Quote:

No it wouldn't. The guy would have killed a number of kids before anyone knew what was going on. Even if some ex-navy seal was teaching there with a gun in his holster, kids would have died before anyone knew what was up. Perhaps fewer kids, but many would have died.

Putting another gun in the hands of the right person couldn't have stopped this? I don't agree.

Quote:

I'll tell you what would have helped. If this nut had easier access to mental healthcare than guns, and lived in a society that wasn't so prone to gun violence (latter thing is hard to change), this wouldn't have happened. The strange thing is that we (you and I) seem to be proving my point. Both of us seem to be anti violence from previous posts, but your reaction to this is MORE guns. This guy lives in a society where the answer is more guns, regardless of the question. Is it a mystery that he resorted to this?

No, there are two separate questions: how do we prevent this sort of thing from happening in the first place, and how do we prepare ourselves in case it does happen. The answer to the first question involves things like mental health, the family, rethinking the use psychoactive medications, and so on. The answer to the second question involves things like having the tools you need for self-defense.